


It's Like Choking on Air

by humanyubel



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: (implied mentions of events), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety Attacks, Asphyxiation, Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Canon - Manga, Character Study, Disorganized Thoughts, Emotionally Repressed, End of Evangelion, Fantasy, First Kiss, Introspection, Kabbala, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Other, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Hatred, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Undertones, Strangulation, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, reference to Reililithworu in eoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6339040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanyubel/pseuds/humanyubel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbMv42mBRGY">
   <i>He loves me, he loves me not, he-</i>
  </a>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(originally posted 3.24.15 and updated 12.15.17)</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Like Choking on Air

**Author's Note:**

> 12.15.2017 im adding a few additional tags and the underage tag just in case
> 
> i fixed some stuff up and added shit bc thats just how i am ive improved writing wise and frankly the draft of this was embarrassing

The sun shines down on Kaworu from his spot on the grass. It’s late in the year but there are no seasons in the wake of mankind playing god (like children on bring your parents to school day). Kaworu likes the sun, the way it hits his paper thin, unnaturally pale skin. The flowers he’s picking at smell wonderful but he knows they don’t grow as they used to. They’re steadily getting used to the toxic water. Kaworu knows about the Hydrologic Cycle. Knows that the water that is there today is the same water that was there when lillin first struggled to inherit the Earth. He knows many things. He knows that he will die. He knows that his shell..his body rejects meat. But at the same time there are many other things he hasn’t the faintest clue about.

Why doesn’t Ikari smile? What is his heart like? Why does he shy away when their souls come in close proximity? He wishes more than anything to be able to understand Ikari and for Ikari to understand him. He picks at the flowers on the ground next to him. They are beautiful but they will die if he is not careful and lays down on them. So he sits and takes a flower, root and all, from the ground. Clumps of soil dirty his palm and shirt. The soil is very poor.

He plucks a petal off. Then another. One by one they fall to the grass in front of him. Four petals only long gone. He had seen a woman do this on his television yesterday. He understands that when you do this you’re to hum a song that makes you happy. He hums the only song that brings him joy. _He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not…._ He briefly considers questioning why a flower would know such things but he does it anyways. It’s a way he can be closer to Ikari, no matter how small. _They would look nice in his hair_ he muses.

 _Und der Cherub steht vor Gott._  
_Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen_  
_Durch des Himmels prächt'gen Plan,_

He’s so caught up plucking away petals from his chosen flower that he doesn’t hear footsteps approaching. The familiar figure stands behind him and his heart flutters in a way that feels as if it’s trying to escape from his chest. He doesn’t look up though he wishes to, Ikari didn’t like it when he’d stare. Looking at Ikari always guaranteed that he would stare. He just can't help but feel joy overcome him when his eyes are trained on Ikari.

“Nagisa your apartment’s locked. It’s late and I can’t get inside.” Kaworu stands, his unfinished flower left forgotten. He sees Ikari grimace at the sight of him. Dirt clinging to the seat of his pants and his legs, left shoe lace untied. Ikari grimaces at him often so he is unable to tell if the expression he’s wearing is his usual “ugh, Nagisa” or if it’s more along the lines of “you’re filthy”. It’s hard to tell with Ikari, so as far as Kaworu knows it could be either or a mix of both.

“Let’s go.” Ikari says beginning to walk away.

“Alright.” Kaworu follows Ikari in the hopes that maybe tonight Ikari will be more open with him. He hasn’t long before _it’s time_.

He blames the First for the sticky tepid feeling in his chest at the thought of the boy. It’s an excuse.

\-----

The night goes the same as it did the night before. Ikari listens to his SDAT player and Kaworu watches TV, throwing Ikari pointed looks whenever there is another commercial for a new romantic drama, which Ikari just as pointedly ignores. He spends his time trying to focus on a rerun of _Bara no nai Hanaya_.

 

He catches movement in his peripherals as Ikari rests his cheek on his knees, sighing. He’s overcome with the urge to place the flowers he had been looking at earlier into the boy’s hair. He thinks they were called forget-me-nots. Ikari’s always tense when Kaworu is around him, but he stiffens even more when he feels the weight of Kaworu’s gaze on him. Kaworu adverts his eyes, though he could look forever. Ikari was a queer creature with walls and walls and more walls around him. Kaworu tries to drop his own walls but Ikari always refuses, so they come up again with each rejection. He doesn’t understand but he wants to.

 

He wants to have Ikari look and see him. He wants Ikari to call him by his first name, it must be strange to get hung up over the rejection of Ikari not speaking his name. It’s better than being called Tabris like the old men at SEELE call him, Ikari is calling him by his name. The Name he chose for himself, but he _still_ manages to put distance between them.

 

Ikari shifts once again and Kaworu stands, stretching, to turn the television off. He heads to his cot and sits on his bed. He toys with the collar of his shirt while he waits for Ikari to finish changing in the bathroom, which like all areas of his small apartment, hadn't been lived in. Ikari had told him not to peek on the first night he stayed over (cheeks so very red and fascinating). Kaworu hadn’t understood. He had showered with Ikari that one time, and he liked looking at the other boy. He even liked the warmth in his chest that looking at Ikari caused. He’s once again uncomfortably aware of the way Ikari considers his actions shameful. Lillin were strange, wanting to be seen one way, not wanting to be seen in another situation. Kaworu was unbothered by the thought of his own nudity. He didn’t care who saw him. The body was merely a container for the soul.

 

Ikari comes in through his bedroom door and Kaworu’s heart jumps up his throat and begins to pound an aggressively fast rhythm. Ikari leaves the door open and Kaworu knows, knows from the drama’s he’s been able to watch, that closing a bedroom door is more intimate. Doesn't he know that privacy is a lie? Disappointment is a lillin emotion he’s grown accustomed to, but he can’t figure out the cause this time.

 

He slides to the side of the bed closest to the wall choosing to lay atop the covers. Ikari didn’t like the thought of sharing a blanket with him. His cheeks had flushed and he’d sputtered like a goldfish- like the ancestors his species had evolved from many many many years ago. He watches Ikari lift up the covers so he can climb inside. 01 are you ready? Ikari doesn’t speak to him but Kaworu tries his best to be polite. He’d learned early on that saying goodnight allowed the other person to know that they wished them sweet dreams. Ikari doesn’t reply, he expected this, but it still hurts. He turns around and faces the wall. The wall is plain, it has none of the colorings of the boy laying there next to him.

 

He knows from television that sharing a bed is considered intimate, but Ikari is good at shutting out intimacy. Silly silly boy. Does he not crave the very closeness he continuously rejects like a self punishing child?

 

He listens to the quiet breaths of the boy with him and the faint noise of the music that plays in his head phones. His brain idly comes up with a scenario he has no control of.

 

\----

_Kaworu let’s his hand slip under the covers to catch Ikari’s own free hand. Ikari doesn’t reject him, but instead squeezes back. Hand soft and knuckles dry. Kaworu feels his breathing stop all together when Ikari rolls over on the mattress to face him. A sigh filling the open air. “We can share the blankets, Kaworu. Come underneath with me.” Kaworu can’t say no to Ikari. Never at the so sweetly unspoken "please"._

 

_“You said Kaworu…” he’s shocked, half ready to slide under the covers._

 

_“That is your name, isn’t it.” Ikari huffs looking embarrassed. The way red fills his cheeks makes Kaworu feel like swallowing. Ikari urges Kaworu to finish what he started, eyes locked onto his. Kaworu feels dizzy but obliges._

 

_As they lay there sharing body heat under the covers, in Kaworu’s room late at night, Kaworu’s heart pounding, they are unable to tear their gazes from each other. Kaworu feels himself get lost in Ikari’s eyes. Brown, brown like the dirt from earlier, but full of a vitality that Kaworu doesn’t know what to make of._

 

_Ikari has the apple. Ikari is mankind past and present. Ikari is the Earth, torn asunder by lillin's foolish mistakes but so very beautiful._

 

 _He’s never had Ikari’s gaze on him for this long before, he can feel his face flushing red to match his eyes. Ikari presses closer so that they are chest to chest, Kaworu’s sure Ikari can hear his pounding heart or at least feel it._  

 

_He watches Ikari’s face draw closer, until he has to cross his eyes. Ikari’s warm breath washes over his face and a wave of heat overcomes his body._

 

_“Kaworu.” There’s lips meeting his this time, pressing softly at first, then more firmly. Kaworu doesn’t know what to do so he clenches the fabric of Ikari’s night shirt between his fingers. Ikari uses tongue, he think this is what the lillin call “french kissing”. It’s getting harder to think as Ikari bites at his lower lip. It's as if Ikari is smashing through an AT Field._

 

_Ikari lets him feast upon the sweetest of fruits, taking as much as he is giving. How can a gift go both ways? Kaworu feels a dizzy spell threaten to overcome him. Everything happens to him in technicolor, just like his television programs had alluded to but so much more vivid and overwhelming._

 

_Ikari rolls so that he’s on top of Kaworu now, straddling him. The bony knees bracketing his hips are a coffin. He leaves Kaworu’s mouth alone so that he can traces kisses along Kaworu’s neck. A ragged choker of heat across his, he wants to laugh until he cries, his adam's apple. It’s dark but he can make out Ikari’s hair sticking up like a halo, and when Ikari’s mouth deviates from its previous path so he may look down at him- his breath catches. Ikari hated him. He's perfect. So wonderful and perfectly flawed._

 

_Kaworu fumbled desperately for one of Ikari's hands. Ikari grips his hand so tenderly it **hurts**. Ikari hated him? Kaworu can't get air into his lungs, his body was on fire everywhere he was touched. His abdomen a burning bush._

 

_Touch me. Touch me. Touch me._

 

_Please touch me, Ikari. Don't let me go. I'm so very scared and you're so very lovely._

 

_Kaworu's heart nearly pounds out of his chest, everything burns and he knows, somehow that Ikari is the only one who can put the fire out in him. Surely he was born for this. They were born to meet just like he was born to die and the longer Ikari's touching him, the more he knows that they go hand in hand._

 

_Right?_

 

_Where had that thought come from?_

 

_He isn't sure anymore._

 

_He eats from Ikari's tree and accepting his apple from the boy's outstretched hand. His existence is naked and his place in reality is revealed to him._

 

_He pants trying to think about everything that’s happened. That's happening._

 

_Ikari's free hand locks around his throat, choking him. Kaworu goes limp, feet scrambling for purchase only for a moment. His vision blackens around the edges._

 

_"What do you want, Kaworu kun?" Kaworu's sure his face is fast approaching purple and still he does not struggle. Complacent in his own death as he is with every other aspect of his life._

 

_Shinji gazes upon his visage with soft doe eyes, warm as a pile of blankets and the summers this planet surely had many years ago. He must be the sun and Kaworu Icarus, a man had mentioned that once to his love in one of his programs. Maybe Kaworu is just drowning in pointless romanticism from the days on end he spent absorbed in observing Ikari's people. Kaworu thinks the comparison fits him very well. He was only meant to die, distract Ikari, but never lust for his attention. His wings were melting and the feeling in the pit of his stomach was plummeting and he was sure to drown within moments._

 

_Don't look away from me. Please keep touching me._

 

_He grips Ikari's hand weakly and tries to speak._

 

_"S...hin-ji." Ikari ducks his head enough to press an open mouthed kiss to Kaworu's mouth. He's breathing Ikari in and all he can think is Shinji Shinji Shinji. This wouldn't be a horrible way to die, he'd remain himself only with the addition of Shinji locked away in his struggling lungs and forever burned into his wide red eyes. Ikari pulls back, unoffended that Kaworu's never once fluttered shut._

 

_He can see Ikari’s face, though only faintly._

 

_Ikari could be God._

 

_Ikari could seduce God with his heart and fuck the rest of the world, fuck every other living thing to be happy for once. God would kneel before him and tenderly kiss the back of Ikari's palm so very willing to do whatever the boy desired._

 

_He watches as Ikari’s lips begin to twitch upwards and reality finally strikes him. Ikari’s never smiled at him before._

 

\----

 

White and red and everything is dark, his hands aren't his own as he violently trembles apart. Ikari doesn't move to help him, doesn't pay him any mind. He wants to touch Ikari to ground himself but he doesn't want Ikari to knock his teeth out. His hands were pale white as the moon and slender like first's but he was bigger than he was and he wasn't himself. He was there, he was. He wasn't himself. He was First but he wasn't her. They were one person and he did not want that. He wanted nothing less in that moment. He was himself, he had to be. He would not be her or be with her.

 

He took in deep gasps of air.

 

His body feels overheated but at the same time cold with the lack of another’s body heat. He curls up tighter, arms wrapping around himself. He remembers the drama he had been watching early that morning and how two characters had laid in bed holding one another. Kaworu wants that. He wants Ikari to hold him and for him to embrace the other boy. Ikari is unaware of his turmoil and Kaworu’s not sure if he wants to laugh or cry.

 

Lillin emotions were so very, very strange.

 

He wants Ikari to kill him, but he also wants him to like him. To love him more than the people who had hurt him over the years.

 

He tries to forget his previous thoughts and the sickly feeling in his chest.

 

He blames First. It’s an excuse.

 

**Author's Note:**

> what did i do


End file.
